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When DeepSeek went to the public with its invention it decided to do it as open-source technology. 

Openness raises all tides for AI development, says a robotics professor at University of Michigan. And Linux Foundation head Mr. Zemlin says, there will be another DeepSeek by the end of the month, and then there will be many more DeepSeeks in the US and worldwide.

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An IFO Institute Survey of German businessmen shows 43% think there would be a no-deal Brexit. Germany's Economy Minister Peter Altmaier, thinks a disorderly Brexit "would hit the German economy hard." Germany had a $48 billion surplus with the UK in 2017. Britain is Germany's fifth largest trading partner.

Interestingly German businessmen including Bernhard Matthes, the president of the German car manufacturers association, all of them do not want the German government to offer more concessions to Britain. Even though they say the no-deal Brexit would be profoundly damaging. When they sit down with Merkel they do not say they want a different approach. The priority they say is that the European Union member states stick together and not make concessions that would invite others to go that way.

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Consumer issues raised in CCTV's 315 broadcasts named after World Consumer Rights Day. There is new energy in CCTV reporters now that consumer rights are a priority under the new administration of Jinping-Li Keqiang. Companies that have come up for review include food companies McDonald's, Yum Brands, retailer Carrefour, Automobile company VW, and computer/smartphone company Apple. Foreign companies operating in China are now expected to follow the high standards they maintain in their home markets or come up for review.

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In a first Vietjet Air will connect Hyderabad, India to Da Nang, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam by November 2022. Direct flights will also be set up from Ahmedabad and Bengaluru to Vietnam.

This will build the connectivity for business and tourism as the new supply chain is set up by the US and EU in Asia with Vietnam and India.

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With 17,000 daily cases Britain faces calls for a second lockdown on October 14, 2020. A new paper by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies says hospital admissions for the rest of the year could be reduced from 132,000 to 66,000 with a 2 week lockdown on October 24 in Britain, according to The Times. Pressure is growing for prime minister Boris Johnson to do this.

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An in depth look at face masks, how they protect, how to wear, and which types are available. Three layers are needed in a face mask, an inner layer near the mouth that gets moist, a middle filtration layer, and an outside layer exposed to the environment. When removing do not touch the front of the mask, remove by touching the straps at the back of your head.

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Greenspan's legacy is called into question with the bursting of the housing bubble which he had not expected and the growth of subprime which he did little to slowdown. His libertarian spirits took a dogmatic view of free markets that said that the best approach was an handsoff one. This conflicted with the proper monitoring and supervision of rapid growth of subprime and the abuses that went on in the market for mortages and mortgage securities. He was also slow to raise rates after the rate cuts were down to as low as 1% which fueled the housing boom. Greenspan actually felt the borrowing on home equity loans for consumption was a good thing but failed to see the excesses in consumption spending and dangers of a negative savings rate. He felt that it was necessary to keep rates low to keep deflation from happening at that point in time. He was too complacent and in the position for too long to do the job well for so long. He was appointed by Reagan in 1987 and retired in 2005 three years ago in this role for 18 years. Could the Clinton or Bush administrations have chosen a fresh face who could have performed quite well and had to prove himself and not become complacent in a wave of adulation during good times? He argues that is decision making process was sound. This showed in the LTCM crisis and during the 9/11 crisis. But what went wrong were that his assumption about the goodness of human nature inherent in an innocent view of free market innovation where only the best happens ignores the possibilities of bad things happening when this innocent innovation is converted into a negative kind of innovation by human greed as happened in the mortgage securities market. And the lack of transparency that can creep in when a watchful eye is taken off the financial machinery and it is left all to its own devices as when these mortgage securities were made complex and dispersed in protfolios all over the global financial in places like Nordic towns in Arctic Norway as well as in far off places in Asia. So the basics: careful watchdog role, continually reassessing things like the patchwork of regulation that Secretary Paulson criticized recently fit for 10-20 years ago, getting interest rates right etc requires a good mind, some grace and a fresh face and energies that a man close to 80 years in 2005 after 18 years in the position got too complacent, overstayed and in the end made crucial errors of judgement and wisdom that his libertarian logic may have made all too easy. ...

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As the coronavirus pandemic reaches the 20 month mark in October 2021 and the government reaches a target of 1 billion vaccinations given in India, prime minister Modi talks about his experience handling the vaccination drive in this interview. It covers a wide range of topics from his initial experiences in development in Gujarat, translating this experience to the national setting, the multiple yojanas or projects from Swachh Bharat (Clean India), toilets for all, bank accounts for the whole population, cooking gas for women, decisions taken for Aadhar, digitization, GST. His 35 years spent in poverty as a social worker that gave him a clear idea of the aspirations of the working poor. On the achievement of one billion vaccinations- It was the careful preparation that happened as early as March 2020 that carefully anticipated all possible problems and tackled each one of them that made it possible. "Vaccinating such a large number of people comes with its own share of complexities. Ensuring proper temperature control of complexities, cold chain infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country, timely delivery from the manufacturing plant to the remotest vaccination delivery point, supply of needles and syringes, training of vaccinators and preparing for adverse reactions, from quick registration to certificate generation to reminder for next appointment. We needed to look at the entire logistics, planning, and progress of the vaccination drive." To understand the person completely one has to go back to the origins of his experience, skills learned, and his inspiration for the effort. Modi entered the chief minister's office in the western Indian state of Gujarat facing the Arabian sea in 2001. He entered office at the time of the Bhuj earthquake in Gujarat and describes his taking the chief minister's office as accidental as he had been a social worker for 30 years. "Let alone reluctance to join electoral politics, I had nothing to do with the political domain itself. My surroundings, my inner world, my philosophy- these were very different. Right from my younger days,my bent was spiritual. The philosophy of "Jan Seva Hi Prabhu Seva" Serving the people is akin to serving the Divine, which was propounded by Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda inspired me. It became the driving force in whatever I did." In 2014 it was with the inspiration from Swami Vivekananda and taking up Vivekananda's vision for the Indian people that Modi began his campaign to lead the BJP party. It may be looking back that Vivekananda guided Modi in all his projects for a Clean India, Jal Jeevan, Indian infrastructure that benefits the last man in the queue in the country, commitment to hard work. "Global experience says government should be there for those whom nobody is there. Government's whole focus should be on helping them." To do this, to meet the needs of that last person left out in India, he could see that old notions of opposites had to be set aside. "Outdated theories such as the private sector vs the public sector, government vs. people, rich vs. poor, urban vs. rural, are still on people's minds and they try to fit everything into this." Governments since independence in 1947 followed the same political and economic thought. After Gandhi negotiated with the British government for self rule or Swaraj an experimental form was set up with provincial governments ministries with limited powers formed in the 1930's through elections. Many of these ministries had the same problems that were found after independence in 1947, as one sees in the writings in the Gandhi library. They lasted for a few years before they were dissolved by the British government. These problems were more evident under Nehru and Indira Gandhi right into the 1970's and beyond. This was followed by a period of relative stagnation. Most ministries failed to seriously address India's economic problems, urbanization issues and agricultural issues remained unaddressed, and industry building was done with a limited vision and scaled down goals. In some ways the elections created a political class interested in perpetuating itself and did not build administrations based on learning, hard work and delivering on projects with scaled up targets to match the dire needs of the country. One sees similarities with France before 1960, before De Gaulle. A mosaic of peoples all separate from each other, with agriculture the main occupation, and most agriculture done the way it was in the nineteenth century by hand and using horses and cattle- this is the picture of France shown in Nous Paysouns, We Farmers, a documentary on Le Monde French television in October 2021. It was De Gaulle who supported a shift to presidential form of government for France that helped with the transformation through modernization and infrastructure development. Tractors were introduced in 1960 to mechanize agriculture. Road, bridges, rail transport, logistics were planned in the way Gati Shakti master plan for India is now being executed. There can be no transformation without this. Unstable coalition governments in France and lack of clarity and decision making before 1960 made such development impossible. India entered such a period in the 1970's. "The politics of our country is such that till now, we have seen only one model in which governments are run to build the next government (sarkar banane ke liye chalayi jaati haye). My fundamental thinking is different. I believe we have to run the government to build the nation (desh banane ke liye sarkar chalani haye)."  Chalta haye, Chalne do. What is will not change. Families, farmers and workers in India, for a long time accepted this without questioning.  "I take decisions based on Gandhiji's talisman that sees how my decisions will benefit or harm the poorest or weakest person." "While taking decisions, I stop even if the slightest of vested interests is visible to me. The decision should be pure and authentic, and if the decision passes through all these tests, then I firmly move forward to implement such a decision."           ...

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Responding to criticism of the Clinton Foundation which has affected Hillary Clinton's ability to win voter support in her contest with Bernie Sanders, the Clinton family has decided to take action in August 2016. The Clinton Global Initiative will be discontinued in 2017. Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton will stop raising funds for the Clinton foundation. The Clinton Foundation will not accept funds from foreign donors. What started as a do-good effort to raise funds for worthy causes such as world health, poverty and hunger turned out -because of its very success in raising large amounts of money from corporate donors- into a distraction for the election campaign of Hillary Clinton in 2016. It opened up Hillary Clinton to charges of having conflicts of interest from outsiders Sanders and Trump. Hillary Clinton discontinued her association as a board member of the foundation in 2015 when she began her campaign. Bill Clinton continued to give paid speeches and raised $2.6 million. All that fund raising appears to have been a big mistake and not even fair to the candidate, as it gave rise to misperceptions about the candidate going far beyond what the Clintons ever understood about was happening. As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich put it, it gives rise to accusations of impropriety that may affect an election, without the voters getting a chance to evaluate the candidates on the basis of what each candidates program or agenda is. In this the Clinton family may have realized that in retrospect the entire foundation activity appears to be a small matter, when put next to the choices facing the U.S. and the world in 2016 for the next decade and beyond. The Clinton Foundation in future would be managed by people independent of the Clinton family and circle. The next step would be setting it up as a public foundation, a new board and professional staff. Was it all worth the problems it has created for voters being able to get a clear idea of what each candidate offered, an not acting as a huge and dangerous distraction which Hillary Clinton and the country and the world could do without, considering the significance of making good choices in a general election- very much so. The foundation and the fund raising made it possible for outsiders Sanders and Trump to turn this election into one of slogans and accusations, to which the Clintons were unprepared to respond, acting as a distraction  which was bad for the country and the world. ...

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Many people ask how prime minister Modi can maintain a high level of energy while having such a busy schedule. Modi had 20 meetings in 65 hours in his 3 day trip to the US. Many of these meetings were important ones, including one with Quad leaders, meeting with Mr. Biden, his speech at the United Nations, meetings with US CEO's.

Modi drinks a lot of water to stay hydrated. He also tunes his body and sleep cycle to the time zone of the destination. Yoga, exercize, and good nutrition habits, also play a part in Modi's ability to maintain that level of energy. Concentration, discipline, determination, play a part in how he handles work.

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Xi Jinping's 3 day visit to Russia and his meetings with Mr. Putin. China presents the trip as an effort to start peace talks between Russia and Ukraine based on its proposals. China is also affected by the war in Ukraine as it works against China's recovery from the economic effects of the pandemic. China sees Russia as a partner in what it sees as a multipolar world, yet it is too close to Germany and the European Union, relations which provide it with access to western technology needed for its continuing growth. China does not want to disrupt the relationship with Germany and the European Union over the war in Ukraine.

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DJT selects as Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who was Chief Investment Officer for George Soros before starting his own hedge fund. Bessent was investment officer for George Soros when he made the bet against the British sterling currrency. His hedge fund manages $500 million in assets. He supported Mr. Trump in his first bid in 2016 and joined his campaign effort at a time when Nikki Haley was in the primaries. While campaigning he offered economic advice to DJT and said  Trump should strive for 3+3+3 for the economy cutting the deficit to 3% of GDP, 3% GDP growth to reduce the deficit with more tax revenues, and 3 million barrels a day of oil production in the US.

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900 million eligible voters in India means this is the largest election ever. The election will take place in 7 phases in April and May from April 11 to May 19. Votes will be counted on May 23. The election is for 543 seats in parliament, the Lok Sabha. Turnouts are high with 66% turning out in the last election that brought Mr. Modi and the BJP to power.  Unlike elections in Britain a lot is spent in each election, about $5 billion in the last election and double that this time. The U.S. elections in 2016 had spending of $6.5 billion as a comparison. Women vote at about the same rate as men and more women than men are expected to vote this time. Prime minister Modi won the last election with promises of development and infrastructure. He is delivering on infrastructure but building manufacturing and generating jobs in the formal sector remains a tougher task for any administration in 4 years. During the first term Mr. Modi made needed changes including introducing the GST tax to integrate India's fragmented market and get rid of a patchwork of regional state taxes. He introduced a whole range of projects and yojanas which are setting the stage for widening the middle class, and improving living conditions. Some of the problems such as the bad loans in the banking system date back to previous administrations and the government has taken steps to clean up this problem by refinancing banks and introducing a bankruptcy law. This has slowed GDP growth to about 7%. However this would have happened under any administration.  The brief war with Pakistan in February 2019 has added another dimension to this election with questions about whether this may help Mr. Modi because of his strong stand against terrorism camps in Pakistan.  In the end it all comes down to whether the public still believes the BJP party under Modi is best qualified to develop the infrastructure to modernize the country and improve services, and whether it can create enough of the manufacturing capabilities to generate jobs needed. It may not be that the BJP under Modi has  not made mistakes in the process of learning how best to tackle development, but whether a patchwork of regional parties led by the opposition Congress party is in a position to provide the strong decisive direction to make quick decisions on development. Getting the agreement of a number of regional parties such as the party in West Bengal state or the Uttar Pradesh state when it was under a previous administration of Mrs Mayawati means an even slower rate of decision making as it leads to lack of speedy decision making. Whether voters have short memories and forget the slow rate of infrastructure development under previous administrations or have a willingness to give the BJP a chance to show what it can do under Modi for development can eventually decide this election. An example of what this means is in how the Mumbai Metro is being pushed through to timely delivery- Metro Rail's head Mrs. Ashwini Bhide simply says she feels for the people of Mumbai who have suffered from delays in development of needed infrastructure for so long, with millions doing appalling rides in a creaky old rail system. In her view it should have been done yesterday. It is this attitude that can make or break the current administration, and whether it can get this message through to voters one more time. Most who have this attitude are aware that China is now laying enough concrete every two years than America did in the whole 20th century, as reported in the Guardian newspaper, and are equally passionate about delivery of services and rapid development of badly needed infrastructure.         ...

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Amy Chozick of the NYT describes the puzzling idea of a Methodist do-gooder, with serious concern for injustices in the South, making an effort to accumulate money. Especially considering that Hillary Clinton must have known that speechmaking fees would come up in a presidential election campaign. Chozick describes in some detail the two years Hillary tried to shore up the family's finances after Bill Clinton's defeat in the 1980 election for Governor. Following the defeat Bill Clinton went back all over the state to voters to hear their complaints, sometimes for hours at a time. It was upto Hillary to shore up the family's finances. Hillary had to stretch to buy a $112,000 home in a better residential neighborhood. Family friends say Bill was never that interested in money, and never worried about the family's finances. Things were so bleak according to this account that Hillary worried about how they would pay for daughter Chelsea's college tution, as her own mother's experience has always remained with her of being denied a college education because of lack of money. During the Democratic Convention this comes up in the video introduction, something that most people are unaware of, which must have been difficult for an intensely private person like Hillary. Her mother is described in that video as having to go to the corner grocery store as a child with coupons for food. The income of the Clintons as professors in the years around 1975 was $18,000 each. As governor Mr. Clinton earned $33,519 in 1978 with combined income at $51,173 adding Hillary's work at the Rose law firm. A one time deal in the commodities market made 100,000, and an investment in land in the Ozarks led to losses- all at a time when other highly educated people in Arkansas were doing extremely well, including the Walton family. It wasn't until 1992 when Bill Clinton was running for president did the couple make higher income of $297,177 reported in 1992 tax returns. At this time entering the White House, of recent presidents only Harry Truman had lower net worth. Hillary donated her book proceeds for "It Takes a Village," to charity, and turned down an advance. By the time they left office the couple were faced with legal debts, owing $5 million in legal fees- Hillary Clinton saying they were "Dead broke." The former president now sought help to buy a Dutch Colonial in Chappaqua, New York, for $1.7 million. President Jimmy Carter was also facing large losses in his peanut business in Georgia when he left office, only to turn to writing books to salvage his finances. Hoover, FDR, Kennedy, George Bush, George W. Bush, were from families with great wealth or built their fortunes, including candidate Trump, sometimes using influence or connections or in the case of Kennedy's family gaining from the end of Prohibition. Eisenhower, Reagan, Carter were of more modest wealth. Only Harry Truman remains the awesome exception of dignity with extremely modest wealth, a small house in Independence, Missouri, no presidential pension, only an army pension of $112.56 a month in 1953. Truman's story also offers another aspect of public service of an exceptional kind and its value to the country for people to reflect on. A presidential pension of $25,000 was set up one year after Truman left office.  Experts say Truman's Senate Committee over 8 years 1941-1948, helped save billions of dollars in waste, fraud, and in faulty airplane as well as munitions development during the war effort, including saving thousands of lives.  In his farewell address in January 1953, Truman said he had spent 17 hours a day for eight years with no payment for overtime. In the address he correctly predicts that the Cold War would be won and he set the course. It also happened as predicted in that address with changes in the Kremlin and failure in the satellite states. Hillary Clinton put in these 17 hours and gained unmatched experience as Secretary of State, and is in a positon to set the course ahead in a manner that Truman once did in a complex world where careful policy, good judgement and in some situations strong action is needed. Such invaluable public service has never really been rewarded in the way business leaders are, not by a small fraction - too long simply taken for granted.  Considering her life story Hillary Clinton appears to have struggled with this all her life, to create a safety net that too often cracked, sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly. Has this concern sometimes gone too far, could better judgement be exercized. Perhaps or probably. Should it be seen in the context that Truman's situation reminds us. Probably.         ...

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Jay Powell signals that protecting working families from inflation even as he attacks inflation and strong labor market to moderate wage increases that could hurt jobs is a difficult balancing act that he wants to get right. Here are his own words at the Brookings Institution- "My colleagues and I do not want to overtighten because... cutting rates is not what we want to do too soon. That's why we're slowing down and going to try to find out way to what that right level is." He said he did not rely on forecasting that could be inaccurate and is feeling his way through this. It showed - the remarkable humility of this central bank governor unlike any of the last five decades, and he was warmly received by Brookings. He is keenly aware that the pandemic has hurt labour market participation as many have retired and some are still struggling to join the labor market, and there are other working families in the labor market who are being hurt by inflation.    ...

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Paul Krugman says in this column in the NYT that Biden's policies for trade reflect a stronger conviction for protecting American technologies and building its manufacturing base than previous administrations including the Trump administration. With less rhetoric and with quiet determination Biden has placed American domestic manufacturing as a requirement for renewable subsidies for new electric vehicles manufacturing and sale in the Inflation Reduction Act. In the Chips and Science Act Biden has placed US semiconductor technology promotion and manufacturing at the core of the Act. Krugman says this was the right thing for Biden to do. The renewable subsidy comes from ordinary Americans paying taxes who would benefit most from new jobs created in the electric vehicle industry. China has gained such a big lead in semiconductor chips manufacturing and materials by supporting its industry, that it is the right thing to do to give American manufacturers the same kind of support. Trade rules were about creating a level playing field, yet previous administrations failed to create that level playing field, and the Biden administration has boldly made its point clear. ...

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PM Modi's Jal Jeevan mission In India for clean tap water for 1.4 billion people even in the Himalayan regions can be seen in the context of water scarcity across the developing world in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, with 1 in 2 persons facing water scarcity. And there is further the problem of contaminated water. It shows that it is possible if there is the will to do it and the resources dedicated to do it. Not only is it harmful and reduces health with diseases it considerably undermines women and girls in society. This is shown in ads for Jal Jeevan mission with a mother and her daughter on Indian television with the daughter telling her mother that PM Modi and the government have brought tap water to the village and it need not be carried long distances from wells, the mom incredulous till she realizes it is true and hugs her daughter. It may be the most memorable of television public service ads on Indian  television in a long long time and shows the immense changes in the world's most populous region even overcoming the challenges of the pandemic. ...

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Make no mistake president Biden is saying it is America's, and India's turn to reinvent the semiconductor industry with government capital support, and with the zeal and inventive capabilities of the US and India. This interview by Ben Cohen gives a glimpse of how Morris Chang now 92 years sees the founding of Taiwan Semiconductor in 1985 in retrospect in 2024. He talks about his early life in the US as an immigrant from China after 1949 and his work at Texas Instruments learning about the semiconductor industry. In the 1980's Japan was the rising industrial nation in semiconductors. By 1985 Intel which dominated memory chips faced challenges in quality and cost and cheap capital from Japanese capital markets encouraging exports. By 1988 Japan took over the market. What Morris Chang is not telling is that Chang already had the Japanese example in 1985. If Japan could do it on all three fronts quality, cheap capital with government assistance, and ten year effort Chang and Taiwan could do this and accomplished this which it has done. ...

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Mr. Trump proposes a 10% tariff on all goods imported into the US at Columbia, South Carolina, says this report in WSJ. A universal tariff of this type is similar to Herbert Hoover's Smoot Hawley that brought on the Great Depression in the 1930's in outright beggar thy neighbor policies which don't work, says WSJ. This opinion describes the impact of such a tariff in failing to reverse the trade deficit which is $951 billion in 2022, but fails to point to the lack of effectiveness of tariffs alone in bringing back American manufacturing jobs. As president Biden has pointed out the Trump administration made much talk about returning American jobs but did not accomplish much for American manufacturing to lead the world in the way the Biden administration has done. To do this the Biden administration passed laws to fund a entire new electric car industry, renewable energy industry, and promoting other industries in advanced technologies, including aerospace, to bring back America's leadership in manufacturing of most of the twentieth century with a bold vision for the future. Mr. Trump lacks the experience on this issue and is simply playing the rhetoric to his base without any plan to deliver the goods to sections of the American public that have already suffered the most from decades of neglect of manufacturing by Republicans going back to Reagan and Bush, Democrats Clinton and Obama. ...

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Now that congestion pricing plan is halted, the New York Subway system that has suffered from decades of neglect and disinvestment languishes in crisis. The NYT says it is hanging by a thread in this report. Compare this with the Tokyo subway or subways in Taiwan, China,  or other countries and one realizes how much damage years of disinvestment driven by Reagan/Friedman economic theory can do. Where Asian countries are investing in infrastructure, eight years after Republican Trump called for attention to infrastructure but failed to invest, and four years after the trillion dollar infrastructure program of president Biden, NY subway remains neglected. Ana Ley tells us what a difficult time it is for New Yorkers. After decades of neglect new subways are going up even in places such as Mumbai, India. How much longer must New Yorkers wait for government to partner with private industry for the NY subway system to be rebuilt, in the state that is where the Erie Canal was built in the nineteenth century in the first wave of the Industrial Revolution? The Erie Canal was built in 7 years for $7 million as navigable waterway with locks for elevation of 350 miles from the Hudson River at Albany to Buffalo and Lake Erie. It opened up the vast hinterland and granary of New York state and connected it to New York City, from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes. ...

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About 105,000 airings of ads on immigration making up 42% of all Republican ads in battleground states are on the Immigration issue since Harris became candidate July 22, according to WSJ analysis. WSJ polling shows 59% of respondents favored the bipartisan Senate deal negotiated by Republican Senator Lankford with Biden which Trump rejected in February. This deal would have effectively closed the Border, added Border Patrol resources, and would have passed says Lankford in NYT if it came only 3 months earlier in December 2024 before Mr. Trump won the primaries. Mr. Trump rejected the deal preferring to run on it, leading to action by Biden to do this with executive orders and cut illegal entry. This means less advertising for discussing the Economy and less for Inflation, which is the top issue says WSJ polling, immigration coming in second.   WSJ cites the Congressional Budget Office on the number of legal migration in the Biden term as 4.5 million, and illegal entry at 4.5 million. Instead the Trump-Vance Republican campaign is using the figure over 4 times that for illegal migration of 20 million without saying why and makes less distinction between legal and illegal entry, says WSJ. And makes statements that economists say is not the case that this will solve the housing supply and cost crisis, and other cost of living pressures. ...

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The Trump economic plan would use tariffs as a tool to get foreign companies to make in the US. It does not include incentives to American companies to create American jobs that won't be offshored and would be expanded, and keep American technologies and incentive based expansion with American companies. In this sense Trump's economic policies are indifferent to whether it helps American companies or not. Biden/Harris are determined to make it America that controls its own destiny. Why would foreign companies care about expansion and building America's leadership in technologies in the Free World, they would use their technologies in their own national interests. Even when they build factories for Chips as TMC of Taiwan is doing in Arizona they do so skeptical of the power of US engineering.  A holistic plan is missing when American leadership is turned over to foreign companies. Biden-Harris would use tax revenues from corporations to give them the best infrastructure and logistics in the world that supports their growth. This alone would add to America's growth by 1+ percentage points considering what we see in Indian growth with or without the best infrastructure. America's infrastructure is dilapidated. Trump lacks a plan to invest trillions of dollars in new infrastructure as Biden-Harris are doing. ...

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People of a new generation cannot imagine that India that they know today could not exist without the integration of 560 smaller kingdoms within overall British India that were allowed self rule under British conditions and law. They made up no less than one third of the British Empire in India. During India's 75th anniversary of independence and looking to India's 100th year a young generation born after 1947 growing up in post-British India cannot easily imagine the critical years after 1910, with Gandhi writing Hind Swaraj that year during a period when he negotiated for the rights of Indians in South Africa just to move freely. The years of the struggle for Swaraj between 1910 and 1931, the Satyagraha March to the Sea at Porbandar to protest the British Salt Tax, the elected assemblies that brought the first experience with self-rule in the thirties, and the "karenge o marenge" pledge to do or die with Quit India Movement in 1942 by Gandhi.  The dominant role of Jawaharlal Nehru after 1947, and that of daughter Indira Gandhi after him, wittingly or unwittingly had the intended or unintended effect of obscuring from view the role of many of the leaders around Gandhi of whom Jawaharlal Nehru was just one. No doubt about Jawaharlal who wore a prisoners badge number token around his neck and spent years in British jails. No doubt about his contribution. Lyrarc throws a spotlight on other leaders who made equally large contributions so that India's young people can get a better sense of what this struggle involved and how it was won by the  people of that time  under the most difficult conditions and trials. This includes Vallabhbhai Patel, Ambedkar, Subhas Chandra Bose, Rajendra Prasad, Rajagopalachari, Maulana Azad, and the young Lal Bahadur Shastri. Others Naoroji, Vidyasagar, Vivekananda, from an even earlier period, Gokhale and Tilak, are people on whose shoulders Mohandas Gandhi stood on and fully accepted as his mentors, as do today's Indian leaders. This BBC report looks at the role of Vallabhbhai Patel of Kheda district in Gujarat state and of his assistant VP Menon. Gandhi was born in 1869, Patel in 1875 and Nehru in 1889. In 1947 Gandhi made the decision to go with Jawaharlal Nehru who was 14 years younger than Vallabhbhai Patel as the younger leader and prime minister who could take India through this critical first decade after independence with Patel as deputy prime minister. Patel died of heart conditions in 1950. Patel's assistant during the crucial period of negotiations for independence after the war ended in 1945 with Viceroy Mountbatten was V.P. Menon.  Mohandas Gandhi always believed that with hundreds of millions of Indians gaining consciousness of their rights even under British concepts of free men and free people, and a sense of their own dignity under God, the British would simply have to leave. His faith in the Bhagavad Gita that affirmed this right under God was firm and indomitable. This was true by 1947. He needed other leaders around him to structure the form this independence would take in terms of administration of the country and the constitution of the new nation. He also needed to bring those parts of British India that were not absorbed into direct British rule during successive wars between 1756 and 1857. These small kingdoms were retained under princely rule after the British decided to halt the policy of integrating them into direct rule following a war in 1857 that almost led to the downfall of the British in India. How large was this area is hard to comprehend when one sees that this was one third of British India in land mass from the Himalayan mountains to the Indian Ocean. Harder still it is to grasp that it would involve bringing in about 560 different princely states or kingdoms into the new India of 1947. It was the task of Vallabhbhai Patel and of his assistant V P Menon to do this. Southik Biswas of the BBC tells the story of how this was done with pictures from that period- click on Original Article to see the BBC report. It also shows how much modern India owes to Vallabhbhai Patel, as it does to Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Atal Bihari Vajapayee, to Tilak and all the people in the jails of Andaman, to Naoroji and Gokhale. And how much it owes to today's leaders who have made it their task to bring Har Ghar Jal, cooking gas, and electricity to every family in every village in India, never losing sight of that last poorest of men and women in the land that Vivekananda and then Mohandas Gandhi never lost sight of.   ...

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This WSj editorial says the meeting of president Trump and president Putin in Helsinki on July 16, 2018, projected weakness and was "a personal and national embarrassment." It say Mr Trump could not even support his own intelligence adviser Dan Coats over Mr. Putin. This will bring Democrats and Republicans together and offers ammunition for the president's opponents, says the Journal. 

It also says that on the Nordstream pipeline Mr. Trump was right about Germany having it own favorable dealings with Russia. On NATO the lack of strategy and Mr. Trump's swagger, saying what comes to his head for Mr. Trump, only weakens support for the alliance in the U.S. The NATO alliance with spending above 2% by Germany and France after calls by Mr. Trump for spending 4% strengthens NATO, yet weakens it by weakening the alliance with America's European partners. 

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About 30% of recent postings are for hybrid work at Boeing and it favors remote and hybrid work. It helps to reduce cost by trimming payrolls and cutting office space to return to cash flow and profitability. The leader of America's largest aerospace company Mr. Calhoun says headquarters is himself and CFO Mr. West. Calhoun is CEO of Boeing since 2020, and has run the company using remote work. He sees the company as distributed all over the US. Its headquarters shifted twice from Seattle to Chicago, and then to Virginia outside Washington D.C. He says about this that 70% of his day is virtual no matter where he is because he runs a large distributed company that Boeing is today. Many factories are in the Seattle area, suppliers in many locations. Calhoun has homes in the Hilton Head area, and near Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire. Boeing says it is a different approach to get employees to travel to many locations and engage people rather than be tied up at a corporate headquarters.  ...